LINGUIST List 12.51

Wed Jan 10 2001

Qs: German Frequency List, TOEFL & Konkani Speakers

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Dear Linguists
I have been examining the result of the TOEFL test to find that in the
"classified by native language" section, speakers of Konkani (a
dialect of Marathi) are always marking the highest score, which is a
big surprise to me. (I expected Dutch speakers to be the strongest
since Dutch is the closest language to English in the list.) Do you
have any idea why Konkani speakers are so strong in TOEFL?
OHKADO Masayuki